Friday, January 3, 2014

Yellow Butter Cake with Chocolate Frosting

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a safe & wonderful New Years.  Ours was pretty good (we went to a house warming/new year’s party) and managed to stay up until midnight-pretty much a record for us.  I think one of my favorite moments of the night was when we released Chinese lanterns-it was a beautiful night. I wish I would have snapped a picture, but hey, it would've ruined the momentJ 

My momma’s tradition for New Years is to eat something round on New Years, so logically, a cake is reasonable right?   I did eat a couple of grapes around midnight, so I think I’m covered for the year!  This cake doesn't exactly meet my goal to improve my eating habits for 2014, but I will slowly get there.  I just had the biggest urge to bake a cake!!

This cake brings me back to my childhood-where we used the standard cake box mix.  This one is obviously better than that.  It's complimented with a decadent chocolate frosting.  So irresistible!

Yellow Butter Cake with Chocolate Frosting

Makes 1 cake (6 inches-3 layers)

INGREDIENTS

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing pans

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting pans

1 ½ cups cake flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 ¾ cups sugar

4 large eggs

2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 ¼ cups milk

For the chocolate frosting:*double if frosting the entire cake

8 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

1½ sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS

To make the cake: 

Grease the bottom and sides of three 6-inch round cake pans with butter.  Line the bottom with parchment paper  & cut to fit. Dust lightly with flour. Center one of the oven racks & preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium-large sized bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter & sugar on medium speed until light & fluffy. Scape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add the eggs, one at a time, incorporating into the mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if needed. Add in the vanilla. 

With the mixture on low, add half the dry ingredients, then all of the milk. Add in the remainder of the dry ingredients & mix until fully incorporated. Scrape the bottom of the bowl to incorporate anything that might have gotten stuck. 

Divide the batter evenly between the three prepared pans (I use measuring cups to do this). Smooth out the tops. Bake for 30-36 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through. Cakes should be a light golden brown color and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center. Transfer the pans to a wire rack & cool for 20 minutes. Run a sharp knife around the edges of the pans & transfer the cakes to a wire rack.

Cool completely before frosting.

To make the chocolate frosting:

Add the chocolate to a heatproof bowl. Set over a pot of simmering water (the bowl should

not touch the bottom of the bowl). Stir in the chocolate until completely melted & smooth.

Allow the chocolate to come to room temperature, approximately 25 minutes.

In the bowl of  astand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar & salt on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the melted chocolate and mix on low for 1-2 minutes, or until the chocolate is incorporated into the butter mixture. Scrape the bottom of the bowl as needed.

Once the cakes have cooled completely, frost and decorate as desired.

Source: Smells like Home, originally from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook